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My work training the realm walkers is far from finished. In Provence I teach them how to chain portal, meaning we connect our magic and portal to one location from differing locations. I don’t exactly know where it will be, but aim for a remote location in Lols.
Ryel has no sense for portalling, unlike the realm walkers who are naturals. Her strengths are their weaknesses and their weaknesses are her strengths. Ryel rides with me.
Her face lights up like all the stars in Thraves as the teal light dissolves around us. “What a rush!” she exclaims, pressing a kiss to my cheek.
The experience isn’t strictly for her pleasure and awe, but an attempt to teach as I show her how to open a portal. Within uncountable portions of a second we are standing on snow-topped mountains spreading as far and wide as the eye can see. It reminds me of Thraves but with more trees and less white, powdery, cold fluff.
“It’s beautiful,” Shiane exclaims as she spins in a circle soaking in the views. “I never thought Lols was anything like this. I always imagined—”
“Something like Drakonia. Desert and heat. Getting banished here doesn’t seem so horrible,” Lamont interrupts with his vision of how he imagined Lols.
Shiane pinches her face. She doesn’t much like being interrupted.
Jine offers her two cents as she wraps her coat around her middle to retain heat. “I always imagined it cold, icy, thin, hard to breathe air, and barren.”
That is something else they needed to learn. “There’s no need for you to ever be cold or hot. Imagine the perfect temperature and let it flow around you.”
Jine’s eyes round like saucers. “I never knew to do that,” she states as she closes her eyes and lets the warmth inside and over her small body.
Ryel glows adorably in a fuzzy blue sweater and tight, stretchy leggings. “Now that you’re all warm and toasty, it’s time to figure out transformation. As a wolf it’s a little different, I think, at first. Our bones snap and reform.” Shiane grimaces at the thought and a visible shudder runs down her spine. Ryel continues without breaking her beat, “The first shift for us is the hardest, mostly because we know it’s coming but don’t know when. It’s a shock to our system. After that, it is much easier because our wolf wants to come out and play, so we let it.”
Within the blink of an eye, Ryel shifts smoothly into a white wolf. Her golden-green eyes contrast and stand out like light, golden-green tourmaline lying in pristine snow. She makes it look simple. I know for a realm walker it isn’t and our change is more of a glamour than an actual shift, but I hope her experience can help them because I’m as empty of ideas as an opened bag of commoner cheese puffs, and losing my temper won’t help.
Hackey surprises me as he quickly changes into a gray wolf with little problem but, as the Canidan realm walker, I can’t say I'm shocked. He’s probably seen the shift a million times and has a lycan parent. I have a natural tendency to transform into a troll. No idea why, since my family line are harvester hybrids and Drakonian.
With a scrunched face, Shiane focuses hard as if constipated, her eyes on something distant in the tree. After a few moments, her body morphs into a tiny animal with a fluffy tail. I can’t hold in my laughter.
“Stop laughing you oaf!” she shouts and I double over in laughter as it keeps rolling on.
Lamont clicks his tongue. “You’re cute,” he says, his belly shaking as he erupts in laughter.
“At least I transformed,” she snaps, sticking her head into the air. She makes a point. Lamont hasn’t yet, and with dragon blood similar to Hackey with lycan blood, why not? He’s seen the shift, has a parent that shifts.
Lamont and I laugh harder followed by everyone except Ryel who wears a stern, grumpy face.
“She’s right, at least she did it. Look at the rest of you.” Hackey moves to her side. He is larger than her, but not by much.
I clear my throat and push away my laughter, taking a deep breath. It felt good, better than good. “For us. I think it’s a little different. I imagine what I want to be and spread the energy throughout my body.” Within moments I transform into a troll then follow that with a wolf. “See.”
It takes some doing and hours of patience before all of them are able to transform. It might be innate to me, but is work for them. Ryel is in full control of her wolf and races through the mountains. It seems almost more natural to her than her human form. Her paws light and nimble as she dashes through the forest and stops, her ears perk and eyes focus on something. I stop with her and follow her cues.
A house, a large house. Four stories high, vines stretch and strangle it. An overgrowth of plants, mostly weeds, swallow the base. My curiosity piques and I run faster than Ryel, passing her and around the side of the structure and stop. Its shape is something like a U but the sides more diagonal with five arches in front, behind the arches is a veranda and thick double doors. Dirt and moss cake in the bricks, telling me stories of its age, but the style says more. I know a little about Lols architecture and times, and my guess is the building was erected circa 1700. Cupolas hold windows on the fourth floor and several chimneys stand erect from the rooftop.
Ryel joins me, padding slowly toward the front arches, her head turns as she absorbs the splendor of the mammoth building.
A pointed block sticks out from the white, powdery snow several meters from us. With a paw I push the snow away, revealing a rectangular stone cracked in two, half of it smashed and weathered with age the other half reads ‘Academy’ in calligraphic writing.
Immediately, I think of the academy Tuck & Sons is planning. Joining Ryel, I force energy towards the front doors. They open. She glances towards me then steps forward and enters. Dust and stale, musky air saturates our senses. She wrinkles her nose and I let out an irritated cough.
The foyer leads to a floating staircase and elaborate banister. I envision the academy filling with hybrids and purebloods together, learning and exploring their magics.
We continue through the entirety of the academy. My mind capturing every detail. The throat tickle disappears. Under the stairs is a seven-sided room and I think it’s perfect. A side for each realm. A corridor leads to small rooms I think are perfect for offices, with their simple design and lack of closet space. A cafeteria, an actual outdated cafeteria, opens to an overgrown courtyard and gymnasium. I see plants, colorful leaves, and flowers everywhere.
The second floor has classrooms and the third floor houses empty dorms. The fourth floor is a large, empty space with endless possibilities.
Footfalls and chatter echo through the building as the other realm walkers catch up. I send my thoughts and images of the school to Denny. He doesn’t respond right away. Shiane’s fluffy tail hangs over the banister as she perches her tiny fluffy body on it.
Ryel brushes against me and tiny sparks travel to my core. What are you thinking?
I wasn’t sure yet. The school has possibilities but the thought hadn’t completely materialized. What do you think?
What a waste.
I nuzzle my chin over her head. We can use it.